Google snubs tech news outlet

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Google has refused to speak to reporters at CNET's online
news site after it ran a story that used Google's chief executive
to illustrate how easily the company's search engine finds personal
information.

Google told News.com, the online tech news service of CNET
Networks, last week that it would not speak to any of its reporters
for a year, according to News.com's editor.

Google was angered by a story last month that focused on
potential threats the search engine leader's product poses to
personal privacy, said Jai Singh, the News.com editor-in-chief.

To demonstrate the point, writer Elinor Mills used the search
engine to look for information about chief executive Eric
Schmidt.

In her story, Mills included Schmidt's home address, his net
worth of $US1.5 billion ($A1.96 billion) and noted that he had
attended the Burning Man art festival and is an amateur pilot.
Mills said she spent 30 minutes on Google to obtain the
information.

"We didn't go out and break into any databases to get this
information," Singh said. "This is all publicly available
information."

A Google spokesman refused to speak to The Associated Press
about the story.

The crux of Mills' story was about the vast amounts of
information Google collects that is unavailable to the public. For
example, Google software scans user emails to learn what kind of
advertising might appeal to the user.

Mills wrote in her story that "hackers, zealous government
investigators, or even a Google insider who falls short of the
company's ethics standards could abuse that information."